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Showing posts from September, 2024

The Ultimate Gamble

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There once was a man who prayed daily for God to let him win the lottery. Despite his persistent begging, nothing happened. Finally, after pestering the Lord one last time, this man heard a booming voice: “Give Me a break! Buy a ticket!” People hoping to become instant millionaires spend billions yearly on lottery tickets. The biggest Powerball jackpot ever won was over $2 billion in 2022. Lottery officials had determined the odds of winning a large jackpot like that are 1 in 292.2 million. It’s been said that you are likelier to be struck by lightning than winning the lottery. Do you know anyone who got struck by lightning? Years ago, Americans had to flock to places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City to gamble. Nowadays, there are state lotteries, sports betting, and casinos all over the country. During the early 1990s, I visited two casinos that just opened up in Minnesota. I had coupons redeemed for rolls of quarters. I played a few slot machines before quitting to avoid losing mo

Lost and Found

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Yesterday, a Facebook friend posted a meme that said, “I didn't find Jesus; He found me. Because He wasn’t lost. I was. Amen.” It reminded me of the cartoon posted above. I’ve seen other posts debating whether a man finds Jesus or He finds us. Throughout the Bible, men sought the Messiah. Angels told the shepherds in Luke 2:12, “And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” The wise men in Matthew 2 went to Bethlehem to seek out and worship the King of the Jews. In Luke 19, Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus. However, verse 10 from this chapter has Him issuing a paradoxical statement, “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” I agree Jesus was never lost. He’s the Savior. Men are the ones who are lost, but they must choose to find Him. Sadly, many people won’t. Jesus said in Matthew 7:14, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few wh

The Key to Unlocking Spiritual Doors

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The past few days, I attended Summer Campmeeting at Calvary Pentecostal Tabernacle in Ashland, Virginia. Before going there, I stayed with a pastor and his family in Buffalo, New York. While packing up my stuff, I couldn’t find my portable luggage scale used to avoid baggage fees. A friend who drove me to the Minneapolis airport weeks before offered to get me another one. Since my hosts in Buffalo had a bathroom scale I could use to weigh my bags, I asked for the luggage scale to be sent to my post office box in Ashland.  It was soon discovered that Amazon wouldn’t deliver packages to PO boxes. Instead, my luggage scale was sent to a set of lockers outside a Wawa convenience store. After arriving in Ashland by train on Wednesday morning, I went to Wawa but didn’t know which locker contained my package nor how to open the door. So I called Amazon’s customer service number. My friend who had placed the order needed to send me a special email, which I received several hours later. Th